Full WW2 control tower details and photos for this wartime airfield are coming soon. Please check back later as this is work progress. If you would like to contribute information or photos please get in touch.
RAF Halesworth, in Suffolk near the village of Holton, was a USAAF heavy bomber station whose active operational life was concentrated into the decisive final period of the air war. Built as a ‘Class A’ airfield and designated USAAF Station 139, it had the standard heavy-bomber layout: three concrete runways, a perimeter track, extensive hardstandings, and a technical site built to service large aircraft at high tempo.
The airfield is best known as the wartime base of the 489th Bombardment Group (Heavy), which operated Consolidated B-24 Liberators with the Eighth Air Force. Entering combat in 1944, the group’s timing placed it in the invasion year and the push toward Germany. B-24 stations had a distinctive character: long-range mission planning, careful weight and fuel calculations, and intensive maintenance demands on engines and structures that were worked hard on long sorties over water and hostile territory.
Missions from Halesworth followed the pattern of the mature daylight campaign. Briefings combined target intelligence, route planning, and detailed flak and fighter information. Aircraft were armed and loaded at dispersed hardstands, engines run up, then aircraft departed in sequence to assemble into formations before joining the larger bomber stream. Targets ranged from transportation hubs and airfields to industrial facilities and oil-related sites that were central to undermining German capacity. In the invasion context, priorities also included rail and bridge targets intended to isolate battle areas and restrict movement.
As with all heavy bomber stations, the human story was two-sided: long hours of preparation and waiting, then intense periods of danger and loss. The return of damaged aircraft – shot through by flak, with wounded crew or failing engines – made crash and rescue services a constant necessity. Ground crews repaired battle damage, swapped engines, patched control surfaces and kept aircraft serviceable against tight deadlines. Armourers handled large bomb loads under pressure, work that demanded strict discipline because the risks existed even on the ground.
- USAAF identity: Station 139.
- Key unit: 489th Bombardment Group (Heavy), flying B-24 Liberators.
- Primary wartime role: Eighth Air Force daylight heavy bomber operations in 1944-45.
After V-E Day, the rapid demobilisation of the USAAF in Britain meant Halesworth closed quickly and much of the site returned to agriculture. Its historical value lies in representing the late-war peak: a Suffolk base built to generate sustained effort, where the combined work of aircrew and ground staff turned strategic planning into repeated, high-risk missions that helped bring the European war to an end.
Because the base was active in the mature phase of the campaign, it also illustrates how operational learning accumulated. By 1944, procedures for formation assembly, escort rendezvous, bomb release discipline and post-mission inspection were highly standardised. That standardisation reduced avoidable losses and improved effectiveness, and it depended on stations like Halesworth implementing the system consistently day after day.
Late-war bases also dealt with a constant tension between speed and safety. Turning aircraft around quickly increased pressure on ground crews, but rushing could be fatal. The professionalism of dispersal teams, armourers and engineers at Halesworth helped keep that balance – maintaining tempo without breaking procedure.